1. Technical Field
Th present invention relates to thermometer-code signal conversion and, in particular, to a thermo-decoder circuit capable of converting a binary signal to a corresponding thermometer-code signal.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Modern electronics often require interfacing signals between analog and digital systems. For example, a digital audio signal is converted into an analog signal prior to playing the signal through an audio speaker. Similarly, many digital video signals from digital media sources are converted to an analog form prior to viewing on an analog display. Accordingly, digital signals are converted into their analog equivalents in many electronic devices.
Digital-to-analog converters (“DACs”) are widely used to convert a digital signal into a corresponding analog signal, thereby allowing for communication between analog and digital systems. Some DAC designs, however, exhibit poor performance due to inherent integral non-linearity (“INL”) and differential non-linearity (“DNL”) responses. To minimize response errors caused by these non-linearities, a DAC that integrates a binary-to-thermometer-code (“thermo-code”) converter and a thermo-code-to-analog converter may be used. The design of such binary-to-thermo code converters, however, typically require increased layout area and additional routing complexity on the chip.
Therefore, it is desirable to develop binary-to-thermo code converters having reduced layout area and routing complexity requirements that may be integrated into a thermo-to-analog converter to achieve binary-to-analog signal conversion.